Solid state lighting is a proven, high-efficiency technology that may be utilized as a replacement for more traditional lighting technologies, such as incandescent, fluorescent, halogen, metal halide, neon, and/or high pressure sodium lighting systems. However, the economic viability of solid state lighting is limited due to a variety of factors, including limitations in current manufacturing, characterization, and/or testing processes.
Solid state lighting equipment typically includes multiple optoelectronic devices, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), a plurality of which may be manufactured on a single substrate using high volume manufacturing techniques. As an illustrative, non-exclusive example, this may include the use of semiconductor manufacturing techniques to form the plurality of LEDs on a semiconductor wafer, illustrative, non-exclusive examples of which include silicon, gallium arsenide, sapphire, silicon carbide, and/or zinc selenide semiconductor wafers. As another illustrative, non-exclusive example, this may include the use of an alternative substrate, illustrative, non-exclusive examples of which include glass, plastic, and/or polymer substrates and/or wafers.
High volume manufacturing processes, as well as subsequent packaging and/or assembly operations, may utilize test systems to characterize the manufacturing process itself and/or to characterize the products that are produced by the manufacturing process. The speed, or throughput, of these test systems may impact the cost of the final products, the economic viability of the manufacturing process itself, the speed at which improvements to the manufacturing process may be made, and/or the ability of the manufacturer to detect and/or respond to process variations. Thus, there exists a need for improved, high-throughput systems and methods for testing optoelectronic devices.